Saturday, 7 February 2009

On Saturday morning I had to wake up very early and get a bus with my luggage. I was sitting at the bus stop at 6.30 in the morning, when the city was still asleep, waiting. Then a man from the apartment block across the road comes and brings me fresh coffee in a glass cup. He said he had seen me waiting and had made me a coffee! Some background: my firm has rented out a flat in a very nice residential area for me. The apartment block in question is respectable, and the man well dressed and polite. He didn't seem 'interested' in me, if you know what I mean. He said he just wanted to offer me coffee because he could see had waited for a while and it was cold. A lovely gesture. Or is it?

I'm not much of a coffee drinker, I have to say. I prefer not to drink things that really alter the way my body works unless it's an emergency, and I just don't like the taste that much, particularly French espresso. More to the point, I didn't know this man. He was probably completely innocent (how many people offer a date rape drug in a coffee at 6.30 in the morning) but - sadly - you never know. I felt awful refusing his potentially kind and sincere offer, but how could I be sure? I feel sad that we live in a world in which we can't trust others, but I can't change that and I didn't think it would be right to accept. So I politely declined, and you know what he did? He offered me an orange juice.

You did the right thing. I know it is sad that we have to worry that this man could have drugged the drink instead of just wanting to offer you some libation, but we have to worry because sadly, there are some people out there who will drug the drink. Don't feel badly, you were polite and you were protecting yourself (which is important).

oh sweetie, i think you did the right thing. it's obvious that you knew that he could've just been a kind soul, but at the same time, one really has to be aware that bad things do happen from the seemingly smallest gesture.

i would've done the same - smiled and said "oh.. that's so nice, but no thank you." and then also turned down other drinks that he offered. how old was he?

i dont think we live in a world where we cant trust people at all...you just need to use you intuition to sense whether this man was genuine or not - it sounded like your intuition was telling you it was ok but your mind was overthinking it